


Forbidden Technology

by Boomage



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Homestuck
Genre: Gen, this fic has been here forever and i'll probably never continue it sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomage/pseuds/Boomage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Doctor is pulled into a dying timeline, he saves a girl called Rose Lalonde and discovers the secret of Skaianet's technology. Can the Doctor and his young companion save the universe from SBURB?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forbidden Technology

The Tenth grappled with his TARDIS, an intricate love dance which inevitably left one of them on the floor. And being as it was the TARDIS's floor, she was certainly not the one who lost.

"Arrrgh!" The Doctor crawled to her control panel and slammed his fist down on one of the janglehickeys. Or was it a doowhatsit? If he had a companion, he'd have explained the difference at length, because he needed someone to talk at.

But the Doctor was alone.

He was looking to fix that.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon!" The Doctor yelled as he finally pulled himself upright, grabbing a lever and shoving it upwards. The screen blipped, and as the dust around the TARDIS settled, it showed a dark room.

There was a girl, there, next to a pile of scarves. She had dainty little purple pyjamas, and she looked awfully troubled.

The Doctor knew many things, and trouble was one of them. He stepped out of the room, and the girl turned to him with a frown.

"Hoy!" He called. "Those jammies look awful comfy. Where do I get a pair?"

"You're interrupting," said the girl, who turned back to her scarf pile.

"Now that's interesting - that's awful interesting - 'cause you don't look like you're doing much."

"I assure you that I am incredibly active on a molecular level. And on several levels above that. Please leave."

"Furthermore," the Doctor said, barrelling through her interruptions, "the TARDIS pulled me here. Practically dragged me, really. Some sort of temporal interference, the likes of which we've never seen before. And me and her, oh, we've seen a lot of temporal."

The girl turned to him. "Do you ever stop talking?"

"Got told I never shut my yap, but I never did pay much mind to that, why?" The Doctor leaned closer. "Why?"

"I should be asking the whos and whys and wherefores, so who are you, and why on Earth are you peering so intently?"

"I'm the Doctor, and I'm staring because you're a girl," said the Doctor. "A little girl weighted down by all the troubles of the world. A lonely little girl who looks as if she's been sentenced to death."

"Yes," she said, turning away. "That's because I have been. More or less. Now if you don't mind, I have to fall asleep before this timeline exhibits an alarming inability to maintain coherency."

"Oi! Timelines don't just fall apart!"

"These ones do."

"What's your name, then? You can tell me your name before the world ends."

"Rose. Rose Lalonde."

"... oh. Oh, I knew a Rose once. Brilliant girl. Marvellous."

"You sound like you miss her."

"Every day. Now! Dying world, timeline shenanigans, let's have a look." The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver, scanning the nearest wall. 

With a flick of his wrist, he read the results. "Oh, no."

"It sounds as if you understand my predicament. Now please leave."

"Rose Lalonde? You are exceedingly brave." The Doctor grabbed Rose's wrist, looking into her eyes. "Now run!"

"You can't ru--" But the Doctor was already running, taking Rose with her. "-- you can't run from this!"

The timeline unravelled behind them, consuming Rose's room, the TARDIS, the hallway. The Doctor pulled them into another room, sealing the door with his screwdriver.

"Alright, that sonic signature ought to give us a little time. Rose! I need you to tell me everything you can about this world. Quickly."

"This is Derse. It's a dream moon. Look, this is all terribly complicated and I need to go to sleep."

"World gets caught at the seams, girl wants to go to sleep, and why?!" The Doctor turned to Rose, eyes burning into hers. "Why is that so important?"

"I need to go back to the main timeline, merge with my other self."

"Of course!" The Doctor slapped himself on the forehead, making a low, gutteral sound of frustration. "Temporal seperation. Two lives, two entire existences, split by a single decision and left to run their course. Now time predators will generally pick off the weaker ones, leaving one course to follow and that! There! Is your main timeline!"

"Seriously," Rose said, "John says I'm bad. You - do you ever stop talking? Even for a second?"

"Ohhh not now Rose, we need to get you out of here! My TARDIS--"

The Doctor stared at the far wall. "... my TARDIS."

"You mean that big blue box? I think it's gone."

"No! No, not gone, just sucked into the time vortex -- listen, I can get it back. I've done it before! I have the key. But we need time."

"Dave could have helped with that," Rose said, "if he hadn't already left."

"Very useful!" The Doctor groaned, and turned to the door. Already, pieces of it were being eaten away by timestream corrosion. "We go out there, and we're ruined. We stay in here, and there's not enough room to summon the TARDIS. So think, Rose, think - can we get through that window?"

"It's a steep drop," said Rose, as she climbed onto the ledge. The Doctor turned, slowly.

"What are you doing."

"I am capable of an aerodynamicism which invokes several principles that, with my shape and species, should be impossible."

"Oh no you don't--" The Doctor scrambled to the ledge, but Rose had already fell.

She rose a moment later, floating with a smirk on her face. "Told you. Try it. Worst that happens is you fall to your death."

The Doctor smacked his lips together. "Can't be the gravity, can't taste anything different. So how are you doing that?"

"Magic. Which is real, by the way." Rose looked behind the Doctor, to the corroding door. "Are you coming, or not?"

"All right," said the Doctor, taking a deep breath as he climbed onto the ledge of the window. He looked down - oh, he wished he hadn't looked down - and jumped.

And fell.

He felt gravity pulling on him, felt the spin of the world as it came up to meet him.

And just before he crashed, he felt a girl wrapping her arms around his midsection. "Doctor, you're heavy, you know that?!" She couldn't lift him, but she slowed his descent, so that when they fell to the ground it was more a thud and less a splatter.

"Oof," said the Doctor, ever-eloquent as he stood and helped Rose up. "You alright?"

"Yes."

"Good," said the Doctor, "but I don't think this world is doing well at all." He turned in a small circle, looking around at Derse as it was slowly destroyed. Time itself was shattering, space falling into itself.

"Are you going to drag me into anything else, or am I free to go to sleep now?"

"Oh no," said the Doctor, "oh no, Rose Lalonde, I'm saving you. Because this was never meant to happen. None of this."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll explain later. Now run!"

The two of them ran for one of Derse's buildings, a quaint little café. The scent of bread seemed warped, and the Doctor noticed as he sealed up the doors and windows.

"This entire timeline is dying. I need to retrieve my TARDIS."

He took out his key, and blew regenerative life into it, placing it in the centre of the bakery floor.

"Whatever you do - don't touch that key. Now," the Doctor turned, smiling. "We've got an awful lot of waiting to do and a terrible amount of panic to avoid. How about tea?"

-

"... so my mother makes me a condolences card. For my cut finger. It was only a fingercut!"

As Rose and the Doctor chatted, the timeline corrosion ate away at the door, and the TARDIS slowly flickered into view.

"Maybe she felt real awful about the fingercut?" The Doctor said.

"No way. She was just being ironic. But enough about me," Rose stared up at the Doctor, "let's hear about you."

"Oh, long story, awful boring, let's not."

"Oh, let's. Go on. Tell me about a man who appears out of nowhere in a funny blue box and decides to save a kid who's already got a perfectly good plan. Which he ruined, by the way."

"It was a rubbish plan, you would have disappeared. Eventually."

"A sacrifice I'm willing to make."

"Rose," said the Doctor, "how old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"Thirteen years old and willing to sacrifice everything."

"Yes. How old are you, Doctor?"

"Couldn't be a day over nine hundred," he grinned, the lie obvious in his eyes.

"You're looking pretty good for a nine-hundred-year-old."

"Oh, it's the avocado. Always put it on my face. Guy named Jack told me all about it."

"Doctor," said Rose, as she scooched closer, "on a scale of one to ten, how human are you, exactly?"

"I'm not human! I'm a Time Lord."

"I knew it," Rose's eyes lit up, and she grinned. "Where are your tentacles?"

"Tentacles? I don't have any-- get off!" He swatted her hand away as she reached for his coat.

"Oh, but I would quite enjoy the visage of your noodly appendages." The Doctor tried not to make his squicked expression obvious.

"No tentacles, cross my hearts. Both of 'em."

"Both?"

"I have two."

"Heartbreak must be awful for you."

At that moment, the TARDIS clinked into existence.

"Never mind that! Off we go!", said the Doctor, running to his love and throwing open the door. "In you go now!"

Rose let herself be ushered inside, and stared, taking it all in. As the timeline fell apart behind them, the Doctor slammed the door shut and went to his console, winding it up.

"It's bigger on the inside."

There was a crash, and Rose was thrown against the railing. She laughed, almost manic. "It's bigger on the inside!"

"Yes," said the Doctor, as he struggled to pilot his way out of the dying timeline. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"This is what the festering innards of a fetch modus must look like!"

The Doctor turned as the TARDIS pulled herself safely into the time vortex.

"Did you say... fetch modus."

"Er, yes. Why?"

"Gallifreyan technology," the Doctor's face darkened, "which doesn't belong on Earth. Tell me, Rose. Who gave you these fetch moduses?"

"Skaianet. What do you mean, Gallifreyan technology?"

"Something is very wrong here," said the Doctor. "Let's investigate."


End file.
